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> I don't think I am naive, just imagine the repercussions of the headline "FBI collected thousands of child rape photos for blackmail"

What were the repercussions of this: "FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images" (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/21/fbi-ran-websi...)

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I think there’s a difference between leaving a CP site up for two weeks so you can track the users, versus actively posting CP on legal websites for the purpose of blackmailing third parties into blocking them (“The Bardfinn Method”).

"The Justice Department said in court filings that agents did not post any child pornography to the site themselves"

"The FBI kept Playpen online for 13 days"

"There was no other way we could identify as many players"

I think the normal person would think this is worth while to catch more pedophiles, hence why this would work politically. However, you can read by the tone of the article that even this drew a lot of rage.

Imagine the FBI agents collecting CSAM, uploading it to websites for the purpose of... preventing copyright infringement

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